How long do you have to answer a progress claim?
Under Australia's security of payment laws, a respondent who receives a payment claim must serve a payment schedule within a fixed number of business days. In NSW the limit is 10 business days and in Queensland it is 15, or earlier if the contract says so. Miss the deadline and you can owe the full amount claimed.
The deadline is usually lost between receipt and sign-off: reading the claim, matching it to the contract sum, prior claims and approved variations, then drafting reasons. An extraction and matching step can do the reading and matching as each claim arrives, and draft the schedule for a contracts administrator to approve. Nothing is served without a person's sign-off.
This guide is for contracts administrators, commercial managers and finance managers at the head office of a mid-sized contractor or subcontractor running many projects at once, where claims arrive monthly by email to site inboxes and shared mailboxes.
Key takeaways
- NSW: payment schedule due within 10 business days of the claim being served, or earlier under the contract (Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999).
- Queensland: due within 15 business days, or earlier under the contract (Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017).
- Most of the lost days go on routing, reading and line-by-line matching, not on the payment decision itself.
- AI can log, read, match and draft. A named person approves every schedule before it is served.
- Start with a claims register that shows which claim is closest to its deadline.
How many business days do you have to serve a payment schedule?
Each state and territory has its own security of payment Act, and the timeframes differ. The two below are confirmed from official sources. If you work in Victoria, Western Australia or another jurisdiction, check that state's Act and regulator before relying on these numbers.
In NSW, the Security of Payment Guide from NSW Fair Trading sets out the rules under the Building and Construction Industry Security of Payment Act 1999 (NSW). A respondent must provide a payment schedule within the time in the contract or within 10 business days after the claim is served, whichever is earlier. If it does not, the guide states that it becomes liable to pay the amount claimed.
In Queensland, the QBCC's guidance on responding to a payment claim covers the Building Industry Fairness (Security of Payment) Act 2017. If you will not pay the full amount claimed, you must give a payment schedule within 15 business days after you receive the claim, or earlier if the contract says so. The QBCC states it is an offence not to pay the full amount by the due date, with a penalty of up to 100 penalty units.
| NSW (SOP Act 1999) | Queensland (BIF Act 2017) | Impact | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time to serve a payment schedule | 10 business days after the claim is served, or earlier under the contract | 15 business days after the claim is given, or earlier under the contract | The contract period wins when it is shorter |
| If no schedule is served in time | Liable to pay the amount claimed (NSW Fair Trading) | Offence not to pay the full amount by the due date, up to 100 penalty units (QBCC) | A missed day can cost the whole claim |
| What the schedule must contain | The claim it answers, the scheduled amount, why it is less, reasons for withholding | The claim it answers, the amount to be paid, all reasons for paying less or withholding | Reasons are written, line by line |
| Claim frequency | One payment claim per month under each contract, or earlier if the contract allows | Check the contract and the Act | A monthly peak at every head office |
| Head contractor claims | Must attach a supporting statement | Check the Act and contract | Missing statements flagged on arrival |
Two further dates sit behind the schedule. In NSW, the guide says a progress payment to a subcontractor is due 20 business days after the claim is served, and a head contractor's claim on a principal is due after 15 business days, unless the contract sets an earlier date. The schedule deadline comes first, and it carries the full-claim exposure.
Where do the business days actually go?
The clock starts when the claim is served, which is often the day it reaches an inbox nobody at head office watches. A claim emailed to a site engineer on Monday may reach the contracts administrator on Thursday. Three of the ten NSW business days are gone before anyone has read it.
Then the reading starts. A typical claim is a PDF or spreadsheet with dozens of lines, each needing a match against something held elsewhere:
- The contract sum and the schedule of rates or trade breakdown.
- Every previous claim and what was certified or paid against each line.
- Variations: which are approved, which are pending, which were never instructed.
- The site team's view of work actually completed this period.
That information lives in different places. The contract sits in Aconex or a document register. Prior claims sit in Procore, Jobpac, Viewpoint or a cost report spreadsheet, and approved variations may only exist in an email chain. When one person handles claims for eight projects in the last week of the month, the backlog is predictable.
Drafting adds its own delay. A schedule that pays less than claimed needs reasons, and the QBCC says it must state all of them. Writing "work not complete" against forty lines, with references, is slow work done under a deadline. Our guide to AI in Australian construction documentation covers the wider document load around it.
How does AI help with progress claims and payment schedules?
The fix is to start matching when the claim lands, before anyone opens it. An extraction step reads each claim, logs the date received and starts the business-day count. A matching step lines every claim item up against the contract and prior claims, and the result is a draft for a person to approve.
- Claim receivedRead from the claims mailbox, date logged, deadline day set
- Claim readEach line, quantity, rate and claimed amount extracted
- Matched to contractAgainst the contract sum, prior claims, rates and approved variations
- Differences flaggedUnapproved variations and amounts above certified work sorted out
- Schedule approvedContracts administrator edits the draft and its reasons, then signs
- Served and filedSchedule, evidence and service date kept with the claim
The matching sorts each line into one of a few buckets and leaves the payment decision to a person. The reviewer spends their time on the lines that disagree.
How does this line compare with the contract and prior claims?
- Quantity and rate match certified workDrafted at the claimed amount
- Claimed above the work certified on siteDrafted at the certified amount, reason written
- Variation not approved or not instructedFlagged as withheld, variation reference cited
- Line cannot be matched to the contractSent to the contracts administrator to decide
Each draft carries its working: the claimed figure, the contract figure, the previous cumulative amount and the source document for each line. A missing NSW supporting statement from a head contractor is flagged on arrival, so it is raised before the schedule goes out.
The data has to come from where it already lives. That usually means connecting a claims mailbox, the document register and the cost system. Our system integration work covers that part, whether the source is Procore, Jobpac, Dynamics 365 Business Central or a shared drive of spreadsheets.
Which claim is closest to its deadline?
Once every claim is logged on arrival, head office can see the whole month at once. A simple register shows each open claim, its project, the date served, the contract period and the business days left. That is the view a commercial manager needs in the last week of the month.
The same register feeds reporting: claimed against certified by project, variation exposure, and schedules served by day of the window. Our guide to construction project reporting in Power BI shows how that reporting layer is usually structured.
- Claims registerEvery claim logged with its deadline day
- Line matchingEach line against contract, prior claims and variations
- Draft scheduleScheduled amount and written reasons per line
- ExceptionsUnapproved variations and over-claims flagged
- ControlA named person approves every schedule served
How do you keep a person in control of every schedule?
A wrong payment schedule is a legal document with your company's name on it, so the safety mechanism matters more than the model. We run the work in three phases, each a fixed fee agreed before we start, with a decision point where you can proceed, pause or stop and keep what was delivered.
- Phase 1Discovery and designMap where claims arrive, where contracts, prior claims and variations live, and measure today's turnaround as the baseline
- Phase 2Build and run alongside your teamThe matching step drafts schedules next to your team's own. Weekly side-by-side comparison. Nothing is served from the drafts
- Phase 3Assisted drafting and handoverDrafts go to the contracts administrator once they meet the accuracy threshold you set. A person approves every schedule
While it runs alongside your team, the drafts are compared with what your team actually served. You set the accuracy threshold in Phase 1, and drafts only reach a reviewer once they meet it. Even then, the system never serves a schedule on its own.
It runs on your infrastructure in Australia (your cloud or your own servers). Contract documents and claim data stay in your environment and are not used to train any model. Code and credentials are handed to your IT team at the end.
Our consultants and engineers come from operational reporting and data systems work, including engagements at BHP, Rio Tinto and Senex Energy across our consultants' careers. Our own construction work includes carbon reporting automation in Power BI for a Tier 1 infrastructure contractor. More is on our construction solutions page.
How Solve8 can help
If claims across your projects are assessed by hand and deadlines live in someone's calendar, we start with the claims register and a recent month of claims and schedules. The work runs as a process automation engagement. Talk to us about where your business days go.
Sources: NSW Fair Trading, Security of Payment Guide (2021, updated 2025); NSW Government, "About Security of Payment for construction contractors" (accessed October 2026); Queensland Building and Construction Commission, "Respond to payment request" (2021).
